Drogue

So, we're out on exercise training Daz and Barren how to use the Drogue.  All good fun and they're doing very well!

Secret weapon

So tonight was the final of the lifeboat darts competition.  We had three crew teams entered and Sam and Charlotte were the secret weapon of the C team! 

John F Gilmour
via HTC legend

Semi-submerged....

Here's a shot of last nights casualty taken from the ILB helmet camera.  Luckily for the occupants some of it seem to have remained afloat.

Except it wasn't!

So last nights shout wasn't quite what we expected. And that happens sometimes...the initial information from the Coastguard leads you to form an opinion about the shout which eventually turns out to be completely wrong. Last night was one of those occasions.

Anticipating a drifting kids inflatable, what the ILB crew actually found was a 12 foot inflatable with a 25 horse-power engine on the back. It had two punctured tubes and had almost entirely sunk with its crew in the water.

Before long it was in tow, crew in the ILB and heading back towards the beach at Ocean Bay.

Job done!

Lovely sunny evening...

No sooner had I put my fork down after Sunday diner than the pagers went off.  A typical Sunday evening shout, inflated dingy drifting out to sea...hopefully all well.

Sunset

The shout was a pretty straightforward tow of a yacht into Pooled harbour.  The only real excitement was the fact that our VHF broke!  Still, we've always got a back up and the lads coped just fine.  They arrived at Poole at tea time but sadly had no money for chips on.the quay...luckily the Poole DLA came up trumps with chocolate cake!

Back on the slip

It's always frustrating to miss a shout. I've been ill recently so missed a frustrating amount of action. Today  I returned to work then got home to find the boat out. And here they are just returning to the slip.  More later...

All the colours of the rainbow.

I meant to post this on Saturday but forgot.  This was the scene in the car park at the end if the day after the OK classic fishing competition.  I believe that Dave was there to receive the donation of 500 pounds (the combined entry fees rounded up by the nice folks at Johnson outdoors).

All in aid of a good cause...

So the kayak fishermen are in town for a fishing competition. Nearly 50 of them are out on the water and their entry fee of a tenner is being donated to the RNLI (the competition is being sponsored by Ocean Kayaks with a brand new kayak as the first prize. Good on you folks and have a good days fishing.

One of the best things about my job

is days like this!

Please mind the gap

It was another great exercise last night, in the wheelhouse Deasy and Dave grappled with the new Foruno plotter. Meanwhile, up on deck, Shi, Kev and myself anchored the boat and paddled ashore in the x boat for a bit of landing practise. We used the ILB as our method of escape and the video shows a skillful bit of boathandling from Andy Lyons assisted by useful 'spotting' from Becky.

I'm still not sure what martin and Steve spent the evening doing!

Good crowd tonight...

A good crowd of watchers tonight.

Lunch date.

Lunch today was a sociable event down at the Boathouse. We had a group of folk visiting us being shown a real life lifeboat station by various staff from HQ in Poole (and Divisional base South). It was our pleasure to show them around the station and talk to them a little about the work we do.

Two for the price of one...

I've just been informed by Dave that we have a shiny new chart plotter onboard (the top one in this rather poor photo. This replaces both the old Navstar plotter (which acted as our back-up GPS) and also our echo-sounder. I suspect that the idea behind this is to free up a bit of space for some other new piece of kit...watch this space.